Polski
Cecylia Malik is an artist, activist, environmental activist and educator. Our interviewee lives in Cracow and it is in this city and its vicinity that she is most active. Her new book, Wisla. A Guide for Big and Small. Leszek Naziemiec asked the author about it and more.
Leszek Naziemiec: I’m very happy that you wrote a book about the Vistula. Also because we live in the reality of the struggle for narrative , and I feel, although I didn’t have insight into the whole text, that you are on the side of nature. What is the book about and for whom? Is it a continuation of the Treehouse?
Cecilia Malik: I wrote a children’s book about the Vistula River. The Literary Publishing House asked me for a guide, and I felt it was a serious challenge. How to write to children about the river, about the Vistula, my great fascination and love, which I have been getting to know for many years? So the result was not so much a guidebook, but rather an attempt to tell the children about the river, to convey their admiration and my fascination.
It’s a very different book from the Tree Girls, which is literary fiction. Vistula, is a story about the adventures of kids who meet the fairy-tale Ludka – a girl, the personification of the tree soul, a teacher of nature. She’s inspired by Cosimo from the book Baron Tre es by Italo Calvino, but a little bit by me, too. In The Tree Girl there is an adventurously written manual necessary to prepare an effective protest in defense of nature. I have included messages of activism that are important to me.
Adventure and activism are also in the Vistula. Because it’s Cecilia’s book, after all! And I’m still having some adventures and being an activist. But this time it’s non-fiction, that is, a book from which children are supposed to learn a lot and which is supposed to be a stimulus for further exploration. So there are heroes and adventures in it, but it’s all real. One of the most unusual and fascinating characters in the book Vistula is Leszek Naziemiec. But also simply water, a sea trout or a river tern.
Yes, I am firmly on the side of nature. And to be on the side of nature is also to be on the side of people, because we are part of it.
L.N.: As far as I know, while writing Vistula, you could count on the support of specialists. In what areas did their expertise prove most useful?
C.M.: My friends from the Save the Rivers Coalition helped me with the writing. The whole thing was checked by Jacek Engel from the Greenmind Foundation. I was taught about fish by Alicja Pawelec from WWF and KRR and Pawel Augustynek Halny from Friends of the Raba River and KRR, about birds by prof. Przemek Chylarecki of the Greenmind Foundation, about water and floods – Roman Konieczny, and about rafters and traditional boats – Ewa Ciepielewska. Without them, the Guide would certainly not be such a comprehensive source of knowledge.
L.N.: You have created the project and collective Sisters of the River. You have been active for many years now. Can you tell us how it all started and what you are doing now?
C.M.: I came up with the action Sister Rivers for the Save the Rivers Coalition in 2018. In the beginning, we protested in defense of the Vistula River against the planned construction of a dam in Siarzewo. I founded the collective, a group of activists defending Poland’s last natural rivers, with girls from the group Mothers of Polish Women on Logging, with Anna Grajewska and Agata Bargiel.
Sisters of the Rivers has been active for 6 years now. We do actions together with the Greenmind Foundation and the Save the Rivers Coalition, and more recently with Pracownia na Rzecz Wszystkich Istot and Towarzystwo na Rzecz Ziemi, i.e. the best defenders of nature in Poland.
The collective includes many wonderful female artists, such as painter Grazyna Smalej (Sister River Swelinia), Anna Chmiel (visual artist and painter), Zosia Szyrajew (animator, artist who is involved in traditional music and came up with wonderful songs for us). In our collective are excellent activists: Paulina Poniewska, Anna Treit, Anuszka Lachowska, Joanna Biela-Gazda or Katarzyna Pilitowska – we are united by friendship and great love for rivers. We are also supported by the Creek Brothers, as there would be no Sisters of the Rivers if it were not for my husband, Piotr Dziurdzia, who prepared all the protest placards for us.
I invent and organize beautiful protests. We tell about such difficult issues as the defense of rivers and nature with the help of images and actions in which you can join, including creatively. During these six years, we have defended the Vistula River several times against the construction of the Siarzewo dam. In addition, we protested in defense of the Sztoła River. We also organized an art auction to financially support KRR experts investigating the disaster on the Oder River. Another initiative was the defense of the Oder River, the Wisłoka River and the residents of the village of Myscowa in the Niski Beskid against the planned construction of the Kąty-Myscowa reservoir. A very important project was a series of actions in defense of water – Citizens for Water – to which we were invited by the Greenmind Foundation.
L.N.: You collaborate with a whole bunch of great artists whose works I see and experience. Sometimes I feel like I’m communing with the sacred. Does your awareness of being nature have anything to do with that?
C.M.: There are some excellent artists in the Sisters of the River collective, as I mentioned earlier. I also collaborate with Maruna – Gosia Grodzka – a designer, artist and seamstress. I believe that the awareness of being nature has something of the sacred in it. The very fact that you are part of something bigger, immeasurable, gives you something to think about. Such an encounter with a mountain or river is a great awe, but also a mystery. It can give a spiritual experience, just like prayer. Spirituality is important to me. I am moved to tears by a doe encountered on the road. Being in nature is awe-inspiring, and the feeling of being part of it gives me solace.
L.N.: What do you think the future of the Vistula and Odra looks like. Where will we be in 10 years?
C.M.: The Vistula and the Oder will be clean. Even in urban sections it will be possible to bathe. Many sections of the rivers will be renaturalized, the embankments will be moved back. Dams will be dismantled.
We will understand that nature – forests, wetlands, floodplains – are our salvation against the effects of climate change.
L.N.: You work at the university. What do you pass on to your students?
C.M.: He wants to tell them that only Art will not deceive them (laughs) – a slogan from a painting by Pawel Jarodzki. And a little more seriously – that being an artist may not give a certain profession (what is certain in our times?), but it can give happiness. That it’s worth doing what you love, with passion, and not counting what pays and what doesn’t. To go after the craziest dreams.
I also teach them what power art can have, how it increases the impact of activism. I encourage them to participate in beautiful protests. I show that it is possible to teach with art, how important friendship is and that it is worth acting together. I urge people to form collectives, to support each other. To have fun. To find courage in each other.
L.N.: Rivers can spill over to the sides. The rivers are clean. We want to strive for that. It’s that simple. Why do some people want to fence them laterally? What don’t they understand?
C.M.: The idea of baffling rivers is incompatible with scientific evidence and reality, because the essence of a river is that it flows. Most aquatic organisms have to migrate. Salmon and sea trout must flow from mountain streams to the sea and back. Stones and sand have to be dragged through the river to litter its banks and bottom.
Fencing off a river is an anachronistic idea for producing electricity – very expensive, because maintaining hydraulic structures is insanely expensive financially. And the losses in nature are disproportionate.
Rivers carry drinking water, the planet’s most precious resource, so we should focus on ensuring that sewage does not flow into rivers, limit the amount of artificial fertilizers we use, plow fields parallel rather than perpendicular to the banks, and do not drain land with drainage ditches. We should care for water as if it were a treasure, and be aware that it collects more efficiently in forests or wetlands, in a wide river valley, than in artificial reservoirs.
I have a feeling that now only taking the side of nature can save us. There are so many wise scientists and experts… Just listen to them.
L.N.: Can you point to any positive example from the world that could inspire us to fight for rivers? Maybe some movie worth watching?
C.M.: A positive example from the world is the defense of the Magpie River, in Canada, a river flowing in the northern part of the province of Quebec. Indigenous people, with the help of activists and local authorities, defended it from devastation by building a large dam and hydroelectric power plant. It helped to give the river a legal personality and treat it as an ancestor, a member of the family, a living being with rights. And the basic right of the river is to be able to flow unhindered.
A must-read is Jan Mencwel’s wonderful book Hydrozagadka and the films: To the Last Drop by Ewa Ewart and DamNation.
L.N.: How do you spend your free time? How do you recharge your batteries?
C.M.: I go to the river. I recharge my batteries best in nature, such as somewhere on the Vistula River, but painting is also a respite for me. Time spent with loved ones, with family and friends helps. And music. But going into the river, climbing a tree, petting my female dog Orsha and hugging my son are the best ways.
L.N.: Thank you for the interview and see you… in the river!
